


Breath of an Angel

by BryceWrites



Series: Broken Measures [16]
Category: Sons of Anarchy, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Death, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Minor Character Death, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Past Violence, Survival, Universe Alteration, Violence, Wilderness Survival, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-01-15 23:03:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12330609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BryceWrites/pseuds/BryceWrites
Summary: It was the beginning of the end. The world was broken and falling apart. Kelsi, Daryl, and Merle ended up in the last place they thought they'd be; stuck with a bunch of yuppies acting like they were camping in the woods for a long weekend. But what happens when Kelsi finds a group of people that know her almost better than she knows herself?





	1. Chapter 1

“What do you mean, he’s dead?” I choked the words out of my hoarse throat, trying to gasp for breath. Tears filled my eyes and I couldn’t bear to look the blonde man in the face anymore.

He looked like he was struggling with the words, like he couldn’t force himself to say them again; he’d barely gotten them pried from his the lips the first time and his eyes begged me not to make him say the words again. He just shook his head.

I gasped again, bending over, my hand on my chest, trying to brace myself for the pain that engulfed me. But nothing could lessen the blow. Nothing could brace me for the struggle that was warring in my stomach, fighting to keep my food down.

“No.” I said, looking up at him. I was in denial, but I knew it couldn’t be true. I knew I’d be able to feel it in my bones, the moment he died. “He’s not dead. He can’t be.” But the tears still ran down my face and even through my blurred vision, I could see his cheeks turn red as he forced himself not to succumb to the same tears.

He nodded, not brave enough to say the words again, but feeling they needed further confirmation.

“No.” It came out as a gasp, barely audible. “No!” I screamed, feeling my lungs and throat burn with the effort. 

Jax looked like he was dying, the weight of the words pulling him apart. Chibs reached around me from behind, his gloved hand covering my screams and sobs. 

“We can’t do it here. We can’t.” He told me, pulling me tightly against him.

My sobbing was uncontrollable and suddenly I vaulted to the left.

I gasped, opening my eyes to see the dash of Daryl’s old gray pickup. I looked both ways, seeing Merle to my right and Daryl to my left. I twisted around in the seat to see where we were. Not in the middle of a field, like I had been before. We were in the cab of the truck, stuck in the middle of some wicked ass bumper to bumper traffic.

“Juice. Juice died.” I mumbled, pulling my sweat rag out of my bag and scrubbing it over my face.

Merle snorted, but he knew better than to say anythin’.

Daryl was quiet, but I could see the sideways glances he gave me, trying to see if I was really alright.

“What the fucks the hold up? We ain’t moved much.” I asked, trying to see if I stretched in the seat far enough, if I could see anything up ahead.

“The fuck you think we look like? News men?” Merle snarled.

I kicked him hard in the knee and popped the door, climbing over him while he was yowling in pain. I couldn’t be in the truck anymore. I felt like a damn caged animal. I even started pacing, feeling trapped.

“Hey, are you okay?”

I turned to see a tall, lanky brunette watching me carefully.

I nodded. “Yeah. Just… locked up in a truck with two guys. Wears ya thin fast.” I told her.

She nodded. “Well, if you wanna get out of this cluster, there’s a group of us goin’ down to the old rock quarry to park for the night, since it doesn’t look like this is going very far.” She told me, gesturing to the blockade of cars.

“The one old man Willy used to own before he died?” I asked.

She nodded. “And you don’t have to. I just thought I’d offer since you don’t seem too much like sittin’ here.” She smiled at me, turning back and weaving through the line of parked cars.

I nodded after her, thinking it through. I clapped my hands together, trying to get the good energy flowing. “Damn straight.” I wove around the truck and threw open Daryl’s door. “Move.”

“The fuck you talkin’ ‘bout, move? It’s my fuckin’ truck.” Daryl growled at me in his normal arrogant tone.

“Move your ass. I’m gettin’ us out of here.” I told him and with a shove, he moved into the middle seat. I hopped into the driver’s seat and made the truck roar to life, scaring a few people in our area. I backed the truck up until somebody yelled at me to not hit their car and then I pulled from the outside lane, cranking the wheel hard to make the truck turn itself around.

“The fuck we goin’?” Merle asked harshly.

“The old rock quarry. This lady told me a group of ‘em are goin’ down there and it’s a damn better place to lay our heads than this fuckin’ line of cars.” I told him, chugging along down the shoulder of the road.

“She done lost her mind.” Daryl commented.

But Merle was stilled. “Nah. Nah brother. This could be good. Maybe they got them some nice stuff, some fancy stuff. Could rob ‘em blind and high tail it for Tennessee.”

“Ain’t robbin’ nobody.” I commented, ignoring them as the truck bounced and rolled down the shoulder for a couple miles until we hit the sign, telling us the rock quarry was five miles up the side of the hill.

I made the turn and headed towards the glow of a fire. Above the quarry was a big open area that most of the people had parked their cars. I climbed out and grabbed my backpack from the bed of the truck.

When we’d heard on the news that there was an infection, a break out of a deadly virus, we’d packed our shit and hit the road. But we hadn’t planned on getting stuck in traffic before being able to break out into the country side. We’d been headin’ for dad’s old shine cabin, but hadn’t even made it half way at this point. Merle’s motorcycle was loaded in the back and we’d stuffed our bags around it.

There were people by the campfire, looking wary of us. I knew Merle, Daryl and I each had our own gun, in addition to Daryl and I bringing our bows along. We could sure take ‘em if there was a fight, but didn’t think there’d be much use for one tonight.

The tall brunette stood from a log that she was using as a bench and came over to me with a smile. “I’m Lori, by the way. This is my son Carl.” She spoke, gesturing to the scraggly kid that trailed behind her.

“I’m Kelsi Jo. This here’s my brothers, Merle and Daryl.” I told her, gesturing to the boys.

“A pleasure.” She told us with a head nod. “If you’ve got something you wanna throw towards dinner, you’re welcome to eat with us, or you can feel free to pitch a tent and do your own thing.”

Merle grumbled, calling somebody a piece of shit as he turned and headed for the truck, grabbing the tent and headed for the woods. 

“Suppose we’ll do our own thing for the evening. We appreciate the offer.” I told Lori, Daryl still standing behind my right shoulder.

She nodded, obviously not put out by my rude older brother. “You need any help with firewood?”

I shook my head. “No ma’am. We’ll do fine on our own. Just appreciate bein’ outta that damn truck.” I told her with a smile.

She nodded. “You have a good night.” She told me, taking her son and turning around, heading back to the fire.

“Who the hell is that, Lori? You can’t just go invitin’ every Tom, Dick and Harry up over here.” A loud, male voice spoke around the fire.

Lori shook her head, glaring hard at the man. “They needed a place to stay the night and they don’t mean to hurt us none. Just hush and they’ll keep to themselves.”

“Got a bad feelin’ ‘bout this.” Daryl spoke gently as we pulled some more of our stuff out of the bed of the truck.

I nodded. The news said it’d been a virus, although they had no idea how it traveled. It’d caused people to go brain dead or somethin’, only wanting somethin’ to eat instead of any human reaction like they’d had before. We’d seen one by the road, back near home. ‘Bout tried to charge the truck too. But it never stopped comin’ for us.

Words couldn’t explain how desperately I wanted this to be temporary, to be back at home in a matter of days. But Daryl and I had both agreed only weeks ago when he found me on the road after I’d wandered the forest, following an imaginary deer, the winds of change had picked up and I didn’t think they’d die down for a long, long time.

* * *

We pitched the tent and spent the night. We quickly found out that the three of us had adapted much easier to this ‘living off grid’ thing than literally anybody else, except maybe the old man with the camper. Daryl and Merle would periodically go off and whisper among themselves, but they’d always quit when I came around and never tell me why when I asked.

Within the first two days, I already had a feel for everybody’s personality and attitude. I could already tell who I did and didn’t like. It quickly became apparent that Lori, the lady who’d allowed us to stay close, was having a thing with the sheriff guy, I thought his name was Shane. I couldn’t tell if they were married, but I knew Carl was not his kid, despite how Carl followed Shane around like a lost pup.

Dale, although nice, was more of the camp snoop then anything. He wanted to know everything about everybody, even if he said he didn’t care or ‘you don’t have to tell me.’ But he kept tryin’ to show Glenn how to fix little things on the RV and for that, I commended him.

Andrea and her sister Amy were pretty quiet and kept to themselves, but they were always helping the group as a whole, offering assistance or talking with somebody.

The boys and I didn’t talk much about ourselves and whenever the conversation came up to question something about where we lived, what’d we been doing before all this, I always steered it away. I knew Daryl was grateful for it at the least. He hated people knowing his business and if I went and talked about us like that, he’d rip me somethin’ good.

* * *

 

 

We’d been at the quarry for almost a month. Merle and Daryl still had their whispers about robbin’ the others blind, but I told them to stop that shit. First group of decent people we met since we left home and they’re gonna go and ruin it for us. The others in the quarry group had pretty much accepted us, except for Merle, who couldn’t keep his damn mouth shut if it’d save his life. But we helped with what we could.

Supplies were starting to get low and Dale kept talking about needing this or that part to get the motorhome running for whenever we did get to the point of leaving. Shane suggested a trip into Atlanta to scavenge for supplies. Glenn, the little Korean kid, volunteered right off the bat. Although he was small and shy, he seemed like he could get in and out of a place fast.

In the end, it was Glenn, Andrea, T-Dog, Merle and me. I had no idea what Andrea and T-Dog brought to the table. We’d been here almost a month with our thumbs up our asses and all Andrea’s little sister did was complain about how long we’d been ‘camping’. T-Dog was strong as an ox, but damn if he wasn’t a lazy sack of shit.

The guys and I had talked about it. Merle and Daryl wanted to go together, but I needed out of camp. I was starting to get cabin fever and pacing wasn’t helping any, so Daryl decided to stay behind. And with that, we grabbed our gear and headed for Atlanta.


	2. Chapter 2

Returning to camp was hard. I felt the weight of the loss in my chest, although I knew my brain wasn’t actually registering what was going on. The sheriff we’d found was reunited with Lori and Carl, who turned out to be his wife and son. I was happy for them on some subconscious level, but I couldn’t feel it.

Someone mentioned that Daryl had taken off hunting. He’d be back within a day or two. Daryl got restless easily and I knew he didn’t much like anybody in camp. I didn’t blame him. God, after the trip into Atlanta, part of me wanted to go kill somethin’ and the other part of me wanted to be the thing killed. Daryl would never forgive me.

The rest of the night and half that next morning was hard. Daryl hadn’t come back and even though I knew he was safe, that he could handle himself, I just wanted him to return. I didn’t give a rat’s ass how he felt; he needed to come back. We had to figure out what to do. I knew he’d want to go back and I already knew he’d blame me for what happened. I blamed me too, but there was nothing I could’ve done. 

When I heard rustling noises in the bushes behind camp, Glenn quieted everyone and I grabbed a tire iron I’d picked up. I knew I wasn’t quick enough with my bow for it to do any good. Rick and Shane moved towards the rustling and I made sure to stay close to them.

Breaking through the bushes was… an odd sight. My brain knew what it was seeing, but something in my head didn’t want to actually process the scene before me. There was a walker doubled down, gnawing on a deer. I also noticed the crossbow bolt sticking out of the deer’s chest; Daryl’s bolt. Oh, the dead guy got Daryl’s deer. That wasn’t going to turn out well…

And then Daryl broke through the trees, looking excited. He’d known he’d dropped the deer. But then his eyes landed on the walker and I could almost see him ignite. He couldn’t even go hunting without some dead guy eating his kill. He took the hatchet off his belt and went to town on the walker, caving in his skull and spilling out his brains.

“That was my fuckin’ deer, you piece of shit.” Daryl grunted, kicking the already dead body.

I bit my lip, fearing what was coming next. We all kind of parted so that Daryl could move back to the quarry, away from both pieces of dead meat.

“Merle! The fuck you at?” Daryl hollered.

“Daryl…” I started.

“Merle!” Daryl yelled again.

“He ain’t here, Daryl.” I spoke.

Daryl stopped and turned to me. “The hell you mean, he ain’t here?”

“He ain’t… he ain’t here…” I said again.

“The fuck you mean, Kelsi Jo?” Daryl asked and I could feel the heat from his temper and suddenly, I could feel mine flare too.

“He ain’t fuckin’ here, Daryl. I know you ain’t stupid, same as you ain’t deaf. He ran his fuckin’ mouth and he got his sorry ass handcuffed to a goddamn pipe. We got surrounded by walkers and I fuckin’ tried to save him, but I… I dropped the key.” I told him in a rush.

His whole body froze and he watched me, like he was expecting me to say, ‘haha Just kidding. He’s taking a leak by the cars.’ But I couldn’t because it wasn’t true. “Ya left him?”

“We got overrun by walkers. It was either leave him, or we all died. There’s a chance he’s still alive. I bolted the door closed. I’m sure he’s still on that building hollerin’ and screamin’.” I told him.

He charged me, knocking us both over. As soon as my shoulders hit the dirt, I threw a punch at him, landing it on his cheek. He hit me back and I knew he busted my lip. We both took another swing before there were hands, pulling us both away from each other.

Daryl threw off Shane and Glenn, staring me down. “You left my fuckin’ brother.”

“He’s my brother too, you sack of shit. But he can’t keep his goddamn mouth shut and you fuckin’ know it.” I told him, spitting out blood.

Daryl glared at me once more, picking up the crossbow he’d dropped when he charged me and stalking off towards the vehicles. 

“The fuck you think you’re goin’?” I called.

“To get my brother back.” He told me.

* * *

 

The next few weeks were a whirlwind of events I could hardly describe. It was like walking through a dream. The group that went into Atlanta didn’t find Merle, but they found his hand, so the bastard was still alive, I was sure of it. Daryl never said it outright, but I knew he agreed too. With no body, no proof of death, he was definitely still alive. We got attacked by walkers at the quarry, driving us from it.

After we fled the rock quarry, we headed for the CDC. We lost Amy due to a bite that caused her to bleed out and Jim because of a bite, but we left him near a tree on the highway. A bunch of others died, and the Morales family wanted to try their luck on their own. We couldn’t hold it against them, even if I thought they were fools. 

Finding the CDC wasn’t as difficult as making our way inside. Trying to talk the Doctor inside into letting us in was a damn right miracle to say the least. We’d had booze and real showers for the first time in two months. When we woke up, we had real food like eggs that I thought we might never see again.

Then the doc, Jenner, showed us what happened when the virus takes over your brain. He told us how it slowly kills you and then reanimates the part of your brain that moves your limbs and makes you want to eat something.

After that, the Doc tried to kill us. He told us the building was in lock down mode and would explode when the timer ran out, neutralizing any chance of the diseases inside getting out. We’d had to fight our way out; that was for sure. We almost lost Dale and Andrea, who’d wanted to stay behind. Jacqui was inside when the building exploded. She didn’t want to go like Amy or Jim. I couldn’t blame her in the least. I would never have been strong enough to stay in a building until it blew, but I knew she didn’t feel the burden of those dead bodies on her anymore.

We went from having five vehicles, to having the RV, the station wagon, and Merle’s bike. Daryl hadn’t wanted to leave the truck behind, but we’d both agreed, the motorcycle was more fuel efficient and if we ever found Merle, he’d never forgive us for leaving his bike behind.

And then we’d been attacked by walkers while scavenging the cars that had all stopped at one portion of the highway, blocking our travels. T-Dog cut a vein and started to bleed out. Daryl had to help him hide from the horde. I had dropped to the ground and pulled a corpse over towards me. Carol’s daughter Sophie had run off. 

After that, we stumbled onto a farm, but we hadn’t been there long after it got overrun. Rick’s wife, Lori, was pregnant, so we had to always make sure she had shelter. It was an odd thing to me. In the middle of the end of the world and trying your damnedest to stay alive, you wanted a poke? I couldn’t wrap my head around it myself, but I knew everybody had their ways of coping.

Me, I could’ve gone for a stiff drink over any other vice to take back.

But I’d known we didn’t have that option anymore. Nobody was safe anywhere and we had to keep each other alive. After wandering the countryside, we’d decided to take shelter in an abandoned house for a few days. We didn’t have many supplies, but Lori needed to be out of the elements, which meant we didn’t have to pitch tents and set up can alarms.

I looked up from the floorboards, to where somebody had called my name. Glenn stood at the entrance of the room I was sitting on the floor in. We’d cleared the house and moved Lori in for the night. It was a big house; four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a kitchen, full dining room, and study. The walls in this room had once been bright pink, with the outline of a crown on the wall, telling me there had once been something there for a long time to discolor the wall in such a way.

Once we’d arranged for watch duties, I’d moved to this room and sat down. Lately, I hadn’t been holding myself together very well at all. I felt like a part of me was slipping away; the part of me that cared for my existence. I protected and watched over the others carefully, always putting them before myself. But I was starting to not care anymore what happened to me.

And here Glenn stood, with a look of concern and worry I hadn’t experienced in a while. “Are you alright?”

I nodded quickly, trying to put on the good show. I even threw in a smile, although I didn’t know how it looked to him since I knew I was covered in dirt and blood. “Yeah, thanks.”

He didn’t move, just watching me still. “Daryl told me you lost a guy a while back. He said it messed with you a little.”

Honestly, I hadn’t thought much about Glenn one way or the other. He seemed alright, and I knew things about him from the life he led before, and I could see the bravery and honor he held in his eyes. But I hadn’t ever put much thought into him as a person. “A little.” I let out a strangled chuckle. “Yeah, I guess.” I said, glancing across the room at the old broken TV in the corner so I didn’t have to look at him.

“Your husband?” Glenn asked.

I felt the same ache in my chest I’d felt since the day I’d pulled out of that driveway on the other side of the country. “Pretty much. We didn’t have a paper to go with it, but I was his old lady; he was my old man.”

“You miss him?” He asked.

A sort of numbness washed over me at the question and all I could manage to do with my body was slowly nod my head once. “Every day.”

Glenn moved out of the corner of my eye and I looked to see him sitting next to me on the slowly rotting floors. He moved like he was making himself comfortable, which I knew was hard. “Tell me about him.”

I felt a pained smile slip through my features and I ducked my head. “Why?”

“There’s not a lot of people lining up to help you. I figured why not me?” He asked quietly.

I wanted to decline his offer; it’s what I would have done before all this happened. I had to be strong, I couldn’t be weak. Merle never woulda let me sit and talk about the man I’d loved, the man I’d lost. But I also knew that if I didn’t talk about it with somebody, I was likely to lose a part of myself somewhere along the line.

“His name was Juan Carlos, but he was in a motorcycle club and everyone in the club had nicknames, so he never went by it. They all called him Juice. He was the only man who didn’t hurt me when he touched me.” I murmured quietly, staring at the wooden floor.

“He was a mechanic. He was strong, and really good with computers. He could hack stuff and change the insides of a computer to do what he wanted. He had a terrible, horrible taste in movies. The Mummy was the only one we ever really agreed on.” I smiled at the memory, although I felt so weak. “When we met, we were both so broken. He healed me and I made him smile once in a while.”

“Why were you broken?” Glenn asked. His tone told me he didn’t want to offend me by being curious and if I refused to answer, that was alright.

It took me a moment to compose my thoughts. That bridge felt like a lifetime ago. “The man before Juice used to beat me. Hit me and throw me around. A couple of the other guys in the club saved me from killing myself. Juice was tasked with babysitting duty and I guess he didn’t totally hate it.” I tried laughing, but it felt strangled in my chest so I stopped.

“So…” Glenn said, dragging out the word like he was trying to word his thought. “You were a biker bitch?”

A real chuckle made it out of my mouth and I realized how long it’d been since I’d heard the sound. I nodded. When you broke it all down, I had been a biker bitch.

Glenn grinned, like seeing me laugh made him feel better. “I hope you can find him when we get through this.”

I nodded, feeling a weight lift from my shoulders. “Yeah, me too.”


	3. Chapter 3

I used to think when people said ‘There’s a light at the end of the tunnel’ was to just imply that it was a train, ready to run me over and throw me off track of whatever I was doing.

But when I broke through the trees with the rest of the group, and saw that fenced in prison sitting there, I considered that maybe the light at the end of the tunnel was actually blue sky and clouds in a safe haven.

Sure, the whole thing was overrun by walkers, but they must’ve all been inside already when they got turned, because we didn’t find a breach on this side of the prison.

Rick called out our game plan to get inside and clear the walkers. It wasn’t difficult, cutting a hole in the chain link and clipping it back together so the dead heads on the outside couldn’t get back inside.

Clearing the yard took a bit of patience. Rick ordered Daryl, Carol, Carl, and T-Dog into the watch towers to take down whatever they could. The rest of us stood in the walkway between the outside fence and the fenced in yard. We were to distract the walkers while Rick ran over and latched the gate so no more could funnel into the open yard.

Glenn had volunteered, but you could see Rick shoulder the responsibility. If it didn’t work, he wanted to be the one to go down.

So the rest of us banged on the fence and speared the walkers in the head when they got close enough. I saw Daryl’s arrows take down a handful, as well as the others shooting. I saw Rick latch the gate as I sent a pry bar through the skull of one of the dead guys. Rick ran for all his worth back to the fence line where Lori and Carl latched it behind him.

It took longer than I wanted, but soon they all laid in the field, green and brown liquid oozing into the dirt. After we finished them off, we had to drag them into a pile on the other side of the yard. 

Camping in the open yard wasn’t my idea of a good time and while I appreciated the fact we were surrounded by big fences, I knew fences could fall. Daryl had wandered off a while ago. I could see him sitting on an old truck and I knew he was keeping watch, trying to make sure nothing got in. I didn’t know why he felt like he had to take care of us like that, but I just sat by the fire, eating the food I’d been given.

Carol took a bowl over to him and they talked for a while before wandering back. When they came back, Rick gave a speech about the shelter the prison would give us, and the food and medicine that could be inside. I wanted to believe him, but so far, we’d lucked out. I was glad we’d found some place for Lori to have her baby though. I couldn’t imagine carrying a kid and trying to bring it into a world like this.

The next day was a battle in itself. Along with trying to clear the walkers beyond the gates and get inside, we found some of the walkers were in riot gear. That was tricky. Although it meant there was a plastic shield between my face and theirs, it also meant you had to be creative in getting to the brain. But with a long enough knife, you could go up from the jaw and that stopped them pretty fast; it was just terrifying to get that close.

We’d cleared the majority of the walkers from the space when something moved out of the corner of my vision. I’d been ready to head at it with the crow bar I’d kept close, but I paused. It moved like a human, not like a walker. It had deliberate movements, not jerky or erratic ones.

The person had their back to us and I could see the patch on the back of the leather jacket from across the yard. It was a reaper, saying the name of a motorcycle club and where they came from. My first thought was that a looter had grabbed it off a dead body and was sporting it as his own. But the man turned. The way his face seemed to crinkle around his mouth was familiar, like I’d seen it in a dream before.

My breath got caught in my throat and I wondered if this was how a heart attack felt like. “Chibs.” I felt the word fall from my tongue like I said it every day for the last year. I knew everyone behind me had a gun pointed on the man, but all I heard was Daryl’s voice shouting something that didn’t make it to me as I broke into a sprint across the concrete.

The Scot looked worried for a moment, taking a step back until I got close enough that he could see my face. Then relief washed over him. I heard a sob rip out of my throat as I collided with him, pulling him close to me.

He gasped, like he was stunned as he wrapped his arms around me, holding me tightly. “Kelsi. Kelsi, girl. Ya made it.” He murmured as if it was a prayer. I knew he’d been religious at one point; maybe that was as close as he got anymore.

There was another body that joined our huddle and it didn’t matter who it was, because I knew at this point that it was someone who cared about me and I drank it in, welcoming it.

When they both pulled away, Jax was at my shoulder, a tear running down his cheek. He looked grateful that I was alive as he watched me. His hair had been cut short, probably to lessen his chances of walkers grabbing it, but it looked ragged, like he’d hacked it off himself.

Chibs didn’t look much better. His clothes spattered with blood and dirt. There was blood and dirt covering his hands and face too and I could faintly remember what it looked like clean.

I could see my group move closer and I turned, hearing a noise. Happy, Kip, and Opie stood by the building, preparing for the worst, but I could see the look on their faces when they saw me. 

Daryl moved beside me, watching the men closely like he didn’t recognize any of them and was concerned. But something in Jax’s face caught him and the realization slowly spun out on his features. “Jax, Chibs.” He said, looking between them.

“I’m glad you made it, brotha.” Jax said with a smile and a clap on Daryl’s shoulder, and it almost looked odd on his face, like he hadn’t done it in a while.

“You too.” Daryl said, giving both men near me a nod.

“Are you living here? What the hell?” I asked, looking around, absently looking for Juice.

Jax’s hand caught my shoulder and he shook his head.

“We can have time for reunions and explanations later, but right now, we need to clear this section.” Rick’s strong voice said from somewhere behind me.

I knew I’d broken whatever protocol we had going for us, but he didn’t sound mad; just concerned for being in the open in an unclear area. So I nodded, readjusting the bow that was slung over my shoulders. I pulled the crow bar off my belt and weighted it in my hands before following Rick’s lead, although I made sure to keep an eye on the five bikers around me.

* * *

We finished clearing out the inside of cell block C. The five men we’d added to our ranks were a big help. My nerves were shot from the day; between trying to kill all the walkers and suddenly finding people I’d been without for so long. We’d all picked a cell to be our room and I couldn’t do anything except sit on the bed and stare at the wall across from it.

“Kelsi?”

I looked up to see Rick in my doorway. “Yeah?” I asked.

“I’d like you to properly introduce me to your friends.” He told me.

I nodded, standing up. Since Rick didn’t know who they were and didn’t trust them because of it, they’d had to stay on the outside of the locked cell door, in the common area with the cafeteria style tables.

He unlocked the cell door and the five men looked up at me and I was nearly overrun with emotion again. I cleared my throat, glancing at Rick. “I lived with these guys in California. They’re all part of a motorcycle club, or they used to be. Daryl told you how I had a rough past. Well, these guys brought me back from that. So Rick, this is Chibs, Jax, Opie, Kip, and Happy.” I said, gesturing to each man as I said his name.

“Rick Grimes.” He said, nodding to each of them.

Kip moved to stand up and made a beeline for me, giving me the tightest hug I’d had in a long time. I squeezed until I couldn’t squeeze anymore and then he let go. He glanced at Rick to see him with his hand on the butt of his pistol and Kip just smirked. “I got a nut shot off in Iraq. You don’t scare me.”

“You don’t look military.” Rick commented.

Kip shrugged. “Really? Because you might as well still be wearing your uniform, Officer Grimes.”

“It was Sheriff.” Rick said with a little smirk.

Kip shrugged like he didn’t care before he looked back at me. “You made it.”

I shook my head, putting my hand on his shoulder. “Nah, brother. We made it together.”

Kip grinned before returning to the tables.

“So ya gonna let us in?” Opie asked.

“Let me make one thing clear. If you try to hurt any one of my people, I will kill you. I will not hesitate, and I will not think twice. And there is no three strikes you’re out. One fuck up and you’re all gone.” Rick said, giving a hard look to all of them.

Happy smirked, looking at Jax. “I like him.”

Rick nodded, before walking away. Daryl quickly replaced him, coming to stand close to me.

Looking at Jax was hard. I knew what I wanted to ask, but the words felt like lead on my tongue. “Juice?” I begged. I knew I was begging. I just wanted him to tell me he was hiding in a culvert somewhere and we just had to go back and get him.

Jax stood up and came over to me, moving to give me a hug.

“No!” I said, pushing hard on his chest to move him back. I looked at his face and it was the saddest look I’d ever seen from him. His face started to go red and when he looked at me, his eyes were tearing up.

“He’s alive. Right? He’s… he’s hidin’. Ya got separated.” I murmured, my accent getting thicker the more distraught I became. I took a step back away from the blonde, trying desperately to rationalize why the Puerto Rican wasn’t with them.

Jax looked like there was no way the words could be forced out of his mouth. He looked like he was choking on them. “We did get separated, lass. But…” Chibs trailed off. “Ain’t a shot he made it out.”

Chibs might have punched me himself. Daryl wrapped his arms around me as my knees buckled. He pulled me close, telling me it was going to be alright. But it wasn’t. It never would be again. It was like something cracked in my chest and there was no way of ever repairing it.

“I’m sorry.” Jax mumbled, but I couldn’t do anything except cling to Daryl who was trying to calm me down.

I moved to bury my face in my brother’s shoulder. “I shouldn’ta left. I shoulda stayed. It’s my fault.” I sobbed into Daryl’s jacket.

“Ain’t a thing ya coulda done.” Daryl’s rough voice said.

It took a few minutes for me to calm down, but as soon as I did, a numbness washed over me like I’d never felt before. The world crumbled, but I didn’t care because I couldn’t feel it. I laid in my bed, facing the cold, painted brick and wondered if it could suddenly cave in and kill me. I’d rather die in a freak accident than by walkers.

Heavy boots sounded on the cement and I knew they were biker boots, I just didn’t know who was in them. Someone sat on the bed behind me silently. I couldn’t even bring myself to roll over and look at them. I didn’t ever want to move again.

“It hurts. A lot.” Opie’s deep rumble told me. “I won’t tell you it gets better, because it never does. But it gets easier to handle, being alone.”

“Heard you got remarried.” I murmured.

I couldn’t see it, but the way the bed moved, I considered him to be shrugging. “I loved her, she was great. But she wasn’t Donna, that’s for damn sure.”

“Where is she?” I asked quietly.

“When the shit hit the fan, she wanted to go make sure her parents were alright. I told her I wouldn’t be here when she got back and she told me she loved me before she got in the car.” Opie’s words felt like a stab to the heart. How could she just leave him, after everything he’d been through?

“You deserved so much more.” I told him gently.

“So do you.” He spoke, setting his hand on my shoulder.

I could feel myself crack and I curled in on myself, not wanting to cry in front of Opie for the eight hundredth time since I’d known him. I’d been so strong through the end of the world and here I was, crying over a guy I hadn’t seen in eight months. But it didn’t matter. My heart knew he had been the one, and so I cried again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize if it seems a little choppy. I just didn't know how to write all the little things that happen in the show that basically make it up, so I was just writing big events, or changing events to make it work with the additional characters. 
> 
> As always, feedback is always appreciated; good, bad or ugly. Also, I have the next... *checks stories* two parts of the story written after this part, which has two more chapters left. So if you have any ideas, if you want the story to go in a certain direction, please please please let me know. Much love.

I stayed inside until the irrational anger washed over me. I didn’t tell anyone, but I ended up at the fence line, sticking a four foot crow bar into the skulls of the walkers who mindlessly banged against the fence. My clothes got splattered with brown blood and rank long-dead flesh, but I didn’t notice, never pausing to consider what I might have looked like. I thought the activity would get rid of the anger bubbling in my chest, ready to spew out, but it did nothing but feed it, making it a hotter, more intense anger than what I’d already had.

Somewhere else, I could hear my name being called, but I was so far inside my head, I was probably hearing things. I stabbed another walker in the head and wondered if any of them were Gemma; if she’d been turned somewhere along the way and left to wander. The next walker got the crow bar more viciously forced into their face, nearly making me stumble when I pulled it free.

I paused for a second, considering which one to go after next when the tool was yanked free from my hands and landed in the grass ten feet behind me. I turned to see an angry Scot. In all the times I’d known Chibs, his face had never looked like this towards me.

He took a firm grip on my upper arm and painfully pulled me away from the fence. I stumbled, trying to keep up, telling him to let me go, that he was hurting me. But the look on his face told me he wasn’t listening to me. He gave me a little toss away from him when we got inside the locked walls, into the common room.

Daryl, Happy, Opie, Kip, Jax, and Rick sat around tables there, watching us with an air of surprise, like they had no idea what was going on. 

“I never been so mad at ya, Kelsi Jo.” Chibs said, with an air of calm that rattled me. “I pulled ya off a bridge, crying over a man who ain’t loved ya. I held ya and told ya you were better off. Ya promised not to do it again. I know ya didn’t say it, but ya did; ya made a promise.”

I watched him from the floor, wondering what he was trying to tell me.

“It ain’t your fault he’s gone. But don’t you dare take this weight. Don’t you dare. It ain’t yours to bear alone. Ya didn’t do nothin’ and it couldn’ta changed if I wanted. Ya got no right.” Chibs told me, his eyes on fire.

The anger in my chest reignited as I pulled myself off the floor. “How dare I? How dare I?” I asked, coming close to him. “I left. I left him and broke his heart. Even if it wouldn’t have changed anything, I could have been there for him. I shoulda been in California. I shoulda told Gemma to go fuck herself and been there when he got home from Washington. I fucked up, Chibs.”

Chibs just shook his head at me. “That ain’t a cross I can let ya bear.”

“You can’t let me?” I snorted, rolling my eyes. “You can’t make me do nothin’ neither. You ain’t been here, alright? You ain’t seen the struggle it’s been for me to not find another goddamn bridge. If I wanted to walk out into that horde and get torn apart, there’s not a goddamn thing you could do to stop me.”

But I’d said the wrong thing. Instead of anger, his features were replaced with a fear I hadn’t seen before. “Why?”

“Because I’m tired of being a survivor. I’m tired of having these walking nightmares bounce around in my head like one day I’ll wake up and magically be all better. It don’t work like that and I’m tired of it.” I told him, suddenly realizing there were six other sets of eyes on me including Daryl’s.

“Ya can’t… ya can’t just give up.” He told me quietly.

“Why not?” I asked him, the anger refueling itself. “What is so goddamn great about this world anyways? Hmm? Anybody either of us have ever loved is dead and there ain’t nobody comin’ to save us. It’s us or them and it ain’t like we’re runnin’ outta dead stuff to kill.”

“Ya can’t talk like that love.” Chibs told me.

“No, you can’t talk like that love. Growin’ up, pa always told us that suicide was for the weak. Killin’ yourself was a fool’s game with no winners.” I told him, turning to Daryl. “But it ain’t for the weak. Maybe they’re the strong ones. Maybe we’re weak for trying to get through this thing without a scratch.”

Chibs hugged me tightly, pulling me against his leather. “Don’t gotta be like that, love.”

I heard his words, mumbled against my ear. But they didn’t reach me. I knew he was trying and he didn’t want to lose me so soon after finding me again. But maybe I didn’t want to keep myself.

 

* * *

I realized my outburst of emotion put everyone on edge around me except the bikers. Lori looked like me like I didn’t have any right taking up space here and Herschel looked at me like I was a danger to myself. It wasn’t like that; it’s just how I felt. I wasn’t gonna find no damn bridge, I wasn’t gonna walk into the horde. I’d be lyin’ if I said I hadn’t thought about it. But I wasn’t gonna actually do it.

It was an intense few weeks. We had to clean out the rest of this section of prison. Glenn and I got separated from the rest of the group when we got ambushed by a few dozen walkers. We’d found the group again, just as Herschel got bit. It all happened in a rush, but we found the cafeteria and we’d had to cut Herschel’s leg off, hoping to prevent the spreading of the disease. 

It worked. Maggie and Beth were a wreck for a few days until Herschel woke up and started to mend. It was a week before he got out of the cell block on crutches. And that was a disaster. Somebody had opened one of the gates, letting in a bunch of walkers.

Rick, Daryl and Glenn were down in the yard getting firewood to burn the other walker bodies. Beth had got Herschel into a cage; Lori, Carl and Maggie went into one section of the prison while T-Dog and Carol went into another. I’d been inside until the alarm went off, startling the bikers and me. We went running into the courtyard to find the guys fighting off the walkers. Once the six of us joined in the slaughter, it ended pretty fast. 

Opie and I managed to get the gate shut as Rick, Daryl, and Glenn charged into the prison to find the alarm system. It took a while to get it off, but when they came back, they told us they’d found a prisoner who’d been here when the world collapsed, and had never left. They’d had to kill him, because he’d nearly killed Rick.

And then Maggie and Carl came out, holding a baby and we’d discovered Lori hadn’t made it. We’d found T-Dog’s body, he’d been ripped apart. We hadn’t found Carol yet, but Daryl said he’d found her headband and was assuming she was dead.

I wasn’t sure what happened, but Daryl told us he wasn’t going to lose anyone else, and volunteered to go get formula for the baby. Maggie went with him while Rick went off the deep end. He stormed into the other section of the prison, looking for Lori, I guessed.

We dug graves, all taking turns. It was hard. Seeing Daryl look at the cross we’d put up for Carol broke my heart. I knew Daryl wasn’t good at talking about what was going on in his head, but I knew the look he gave the cross with Carol’s name. I’d given my phone the same look, hoping for Juice’s name to pop up.

And my heart sank into my stomach, knowing I’d never see Juice again. I fought the tears by digging more vigorously. The real problem came when Glenn and Maggie went into a nearby town to get formula and whatever supplies they could find.  

All in the same day, we found Carol alive, and Rick came back with a woman in tow, holding baby formula, saying she saw Glenn and Maggie get kidnapped. After few words, we decided to rescue them. Rick, Daryl and I would go with this woman, Michonne. The bikers protested, saying one of them should go with us. Chibs didn’t look happy, but I told him he had to stay here and watch over the prison when we left. Jax looked equally unhappy, but they agreed.

The trek from the woods where we parked the car into this place, Woodbury, where Glenn and Maggie were, was a hard trek. Part of me didn’t believe this Michonne chick and I could tell Daryl didn’t much either.

It was dark when we reached the outside of the gates. Michonne showed us how to get in and by the time we were all inside, she was gone. I cursed at her, looking over at Daryl. He shook his head, turning his focus to the mission at hand. After a brief glance at the layout of this town, we headed towards a building on the far north, away from the majority of the town. There were guards posted outside and after a few shots, they were down.

We snuck in and got Maggie and Glenn before the world broke out into a firefight. We ducked and dodged before we ended up pinned in another building. We fought our way out, but I got shot in the arm. If I thought about it much, it was pretty close to where I’d got shot by our neighbor when I was younger.

In the mass chaos, trying to get Glenn and Maggie out, I realized Daryl was missing from the count. Rick and I got them out and away, heading to the rendezvous point. Michonne appeared out of the woods and we tried interrogating her, but we had bigger problems. Daryl still hadn’t showed, which meant we had been captured.

We made a plan though and Rick and Maggie headed back into Woodbury. Rick wanted someone to stay here with Michonne and Glenn needed a looking after too. He told me he’d seen Merle, alive and as well as Merle could be, working under the Governor. He’d even thrown a walker at Glenn. Outwardly, I shook my head, protesting and arguing that Merle wasn’t like that. Part of me even thought Glenn was lying

But inside, I knew he would if he got the chance. He was his father, flesh and blood, and I’d never liked a man less. I couldn’t say it out loud though. Merle was family and Merle didn’t go back on family.

So when Rick and Maggie came walking out of the woods with Daryl and Merle, I smiled. Merle was alive and well. But we didn’t have time for niceities; we had to disappear before the guards of that crazy town came after us, so we all loaded in the SUV.

We stopped a few miles from the prison, figuring it was a safe distance. Glenn told us he wasn’t comfortable going back to the prison with Merle, after Merle’d tried to kill him. Part of me wanted to protest, but I stayed quiet, watching the encounter until Merle got mad.

“Ain’t you got a damn thing to say?” Merle snarled, turning to me.

“What you want me to say, Merle? Glenn’s family and you tried to kill him.” I told the older man.

“He ain’t yer family! What about ol’ Merle?” He snarled again.

“Just ‘cause he ain’t blood don’t mean he ain’t family! Damn better family than you are!” I told him.

Merle seemed to shift his weight, looking pissed but holding his tongue for the first time since I’d known him. “Fine. You comin’ little brother?”

I looked over at Daryl, silently begging him to stay. 

Daryl gave me much the same look he gave me all the time ago, when we stood in a dirt lot in an abandoned dairy, when he told me Merle was family and we had to stick together. “He’s family.” He told me quietly.

“Come on then little sister.” Merle told me, taking a few steps back.

I could feel my eyes fill with tears and I looked over at Rick and Glenn, remembering there was five bikers at the prison who had come all this way just for me. I looked back at Merle and slowly shook my head, turning to stumble into the car, closing the door behind me. I couldn’t look at them as they went away again. I couldn’t see them leave again.

So I sat in the car until the others climbed in and we drove away. A piece of my heart chipped off, but I wiped my eyes and readjusted how I held the crowbar.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realized I didn't finish posting the last tow chapter and I am a terrible human I'M SO SORRY.  
> Here have a thing.

Getting out of the SUV was harder than I wanted it to be. I should be used to losing them by now, but I felt torn once more, between the family I needed and the blood I didn’t. 

“What happened?” Chibs asked, but his words sounded hallow in my ears. 

“Daryl left with Merle.” I told him quietly, pushing past the bikers so get back into the prison. I laid on my bed, silently listening to the workings of the prison. I could hear them discuss whether or not Michonne should stay with us or not. I didn’t care either way. She seemed fine on the drive, and she helped us get our people back when she could’ve let them die. 

I felt somebody sit on the bed behind me and I just didn’t care. I felt much the same way I did when the guys told me Juice hadn’t made it out alive. I felt a hole ripped in me that I thought might never be filled. I wanted to go after him, but I knew Daryl was stubborn. I knew he’d stay gone if that’s what he wanted. 

“Wish I could make this easier on ya lass.” Chibs told me. 

I didn’t know what to say. I felt like I was always going through this, finding somebody just to lose somebody else. “Love is for wimps.” I murmured. 

“Nah, love is for the brave.” Chibs told me. 

“Love is for the weak.” I told him, moving to stand up off the bed. 

He grabbed my hand, stalling my exit. “Don’t give up on love, lass.” 

I pulled my hand from his and moved towards the crowded room, asking Rick which detail he wanted me on. He tried to tell me to go rest, but I protested, telling him I was better suited helping with whatever I could. He told me to take Jax and Opie and spear the walkers at the fence, keeping them at bay. 

I tried not to think about Daryl, out in the woods with Merle, bein’ yanked around the same as he had been for years. But that was all I could do as I stood next to Opie and Jax, spearing walkers. We’d come so far, we’d been through so much; I didn’t know how he could just leave after all this time. Merle hadn’t changed; if anythin’, he’d gotten worse. Part of me didn’t want to believe Glenn, but I knew deep inside me that it wouldn’t have taken much for Merle to get that far, even before everything went to shit. 

After a while Jax told me we should go in and get out of the heat. I didn’t know how Opie could wear that stupid beanie in this humidity, but I said nothing. I knew he’d been talking to me, but I needed to do something and I knew if I was inside those prison walls, I might fall apart again and I’d been through this too many times. 

I heard Jax say something else as I was stabbing another walker in the face, but between my determination to not move and the slurping sound of brain matter as I yanked my crow bar free, his words didn’t get to me. 

“Kelsi!” Jax barked, making me freeze. 

Slowly, I bit my lip and turned to him. I knew he wasn’t happy, but I hadn’t quite expected the look he gave me. Opie didn’t look thrilled either. 

“Stop.” Jax said, his voice a little softer. 

A flicker of anger flared in my chest. “With all due respect, Prince, no.” I told him sternly. 

“Stop before I make you.” He told me, moving closer to me, his voice dropping a little, gaining a scary tilt to it. 

The anger slowly wrapped around me. I squeezed the crow bar harder and all I could do was think about swinging it at him as hard as I could. He didn’t get it. He had no idea how I got ripped apart every time somebody left or died. He didn’t know how weak I felt when I couldn’t control a goddamn thing in this world. 

“Now.” He spoke again. 

I threw down the crow bar with all my might. It was stupid and pointless, but it made it feel a little better. The plaid over shirt I’d put on to keep the blood spatter off me was itching at my arms. I unbuttoned it and tossed it off to the side. 

Jax and Opie watched me carefully before I launched myself to Jax. I threw my fist as hard as I could manage and it collided with his jaw perfectly. I wasn’t all that strong, but we ended up in the weeds. I threw another punch before he could recover. He regained his bearings and threw me to the side, landing me on my back. He crawled up on top of me, trying to pin my arms down. 

The last time a man had done that it’d been Danny when we’d been together and anger covered me like cold water. 

Jax was just on top of me, not straddling me. So I swung my knee up and got him in the ribs, making him lean down and choke before I threw my weight to make us roll so I was on top of him again. I threw another punch and I could see his cheek start to swell. He caught my hands and kicked, throwing me over his head to land on my back. 

Opie grabbed me around the waist as I recovered, moving to dive at him again. I elbowed him in the side and as he doubled over, I kicked him in the shin, sending him to the dirt. He coughed and held up his hands like he wanted me to wait and it suddenly dawned on me what’d I’d just done. 

I turned around to look at Jax and his nose was bleeding, his lip was cut and his cheek was swelling. He didn’t look at me like the weak Kelsi I’d been when I was ready to die; now he looked at me like I might tear him apart and the idea that I’d just willingly hurt my friends, my family, made me want to crumble. 

“Jax…” I took a breath and the tears slowly blurred my vision. “God, I’m so sorry.” I moved over to him and fell to my knees, gently reaching out to touch his face. Those crystal blue eyes, the ones that had lead me away from a bridge and towards a better life, now stared at me like he might wanna put me back on that bridge. 

“There goes your pretty boy good looks.” Opie sputtered, moving to sit up on his knees. 

I wanted to turn around and slap him. This wasn’t the time for humor. I’d just done something awful and hideous and how dare he joke about it. 

“Better me than somebody you care about.” Jax told me, spitting out a little blood into the weeds. 

I gasped. I could hear the humor in his voice, but the words hurt much more than any hit I’d ever taken. Before I could move away from him, his hands were on my shoulders, pulling me roughly towards him. I fell against his chest, feeling useless and worthless. If I’d ever had a reason to want to end myself, this had to be it. Hurting the ones I loved most was one of the lowest places I’d ever been. 

“I’m sorry you keep getting hurt.” Jax told me, holding me tightly against him. “We’re gonna survive this and we’re gonna make it.” 

 

\- 

 

When we got back to the prison, Rick and Chibs were quick to ask what had happened to Jax’s face. Jax and Opie tried to joke about making some stupid comment, but I’d told them it had been me, going off the handle and it wouldn’t happen again. Rick’s gaze was judgmental and I knew I’d been put on his mental watch list; while Chibs just looked at me like he didn’t know how to help. 

Laying in bed, staring at the brick, made me think about all the feelings I’d had so long ago when I stood on that bridge. I often remembered the night, but I tried to focus on what exactly had happened with Danny before I’d left the house. 

I reached up to gently touch the long scar on my cheek that had healed a long, long time ago and I couldn’t even remember what had caused it; why he’d back handed me with the heavy ring to cause the mark on my face. 

I fell into a restless sleep, tossing and turning, running from monsters and faceless men threatening to kill me. I didn’t remember waking up, but suddenly I was sitting upright in bed, panting, looking at the door of my cell that had been covered with a blanket so I had some separation. 

Kip stood at the entrance, just barely pulling the blanket away from the wall to watch me. 

“What’s wrong?” I choked out, feeling drained and tired. 

“You were whimpering.” He whispered, pushing past the blanket to come sit on the bed next to me, watching me carefully. 

“Sorry.” I murmured, running my hand over my face, wiping off the sweat. 

“Talk to me.” He whispered. 

Through the crack of space where the blanket didn’t quite meet the wall, I could see a window out across the open hall and false light was just barely starting to break, meaning the rest of the world hadn’t had a chance to wake up yet. 

I shook my head. “Nothin’ to tell.” I told him, pushing off the bed and moving to the sink to splash water on my face. 

“What happened with Jax?” He asked quietly. 

I shrugged, drying my face on the sleeves of my shirt as I moved to sit back down. “I lost it.” 

“Obviously.” Kip said, his eyebrows shooting up his face before they relaxed back into their normal place. “Man, he thought you were going to end him.” 

Tears sprung up in my eyes at the thought that Jax actually considered I might finish him. I reached up to cover the bottom half of my face and leaned forward, resting my elbow on my thigh. 

Kip’s hand set on my back, rubbing circles as I tried to keep the tears back. “He knows you didn’t mean it.” 

But his words were hollow in my ears. All I’d wanted was to find my guys, all my guys, and be one big happy family again. But Juice was dead, I’d tried to do the same to Jax and Daryl didn’t want nothin’ to do with us. 

“Why do you fuckers keep puttin’ up with me?” I murmured silently, partly not wanting to hear the answer. 

“Because we love you.” Kip said, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and pulling me into a one armed hug. 

“I’m just some psycho that should’ve died a long time ago.” I whispered. 

“You might be psycho, but you survived because you were meant to.” He told me, still holding me tight. 

Part of me wanted to shake my head and tell him no, I wasn’t meant to. It’d been luck since the moment I decided to leave Danny’s house and trudge across town to a bridge nobody cared about. It wasn’t fate or destiny; it was chance. It was a luck of the draw I didn’t know I possessed, but somehow I was still here. 

“We should get to work.” I murmured, nodding my head so he’d let me go, but hoping he wouldn’t. 

“And do what?” He asked, looking over at me. 

I shrugged. I didn’t have an answer to that. I just couldn’t sit here and wallow about another lost person, coming and going through my life as they pleased. I remembered when Happy and Chibs came to see me at the diner, and how I’d left their motel room the next morning without a word, because I couldn’t stand to see them leave again. 

“Just need to do somethin’ before I lose another person.” I told him quietly, sliding into my boots and making for the curtain I used as a door.


	6. Chapter 6

It’d been a week and a half since Daryl left. He’d come back with Merle in tow. We’d got attacked that day by the Governor. He was out for blood, I knew. He tried to ambush us with walkers. It didn’t work, but we came too close for comfort on that one.

I didn’t know if I was happy about seeing Merle or not, but I was glad to have Daryl back; I was glad he’d come back at all.

Andrea had found the prison; she’d been staying in Woodbury this whole time. I didn’t like the idea that she seemed to have an in with the Governor, but it wasn’t my place to say anything. None of the bikers seemed to care for her being at the prison and after she left, Kip told me that he felt weird when she was here, like she brought death. I knew Kip had seen war before all of this and the steely look his eyes took on when he told me about his feelings toward Andrea made me wish she’d never come back.

Kip and I agreed we’d keep the vibes to ourselves until something happened one way or the other. I didn’t like to think about death coming, but I knew if the Governor was involved, it just might be around the corner. Something in the air seemed to shift as well.

Rick and the Governor had a meeting to talk about what was going on. I didn’t think it was a good idea, but Rick said they had to try. I didn’t like it; it felt wrong to me. But Rick returned and said we had to go to war with Woodbury. I didn’t think that was a good idea either. We weren’t exactly an army; there was only a handful of people in our group with military experience and while Rick counted Merle in the handful, Merle was a loose cannon.

Later, Daryl told me quietly that The Governor had offered to leave us alone if Rick gave him Michonne. I told him it was a bad idea; she was part of the group now, we couldn’t just go sending people to the slaughter house like that. He agreed and told me they were trying to figure it out.

But then Merle disappeared with Michonne. He was just gone. We searched damn near the whole prison and couldn’t find a trace of him. Daryl went after them. I’d told him I’d go to, but he got mad and told me to stay put. I couldn’t just sit around and wait like this! Part of me was stunned that Merle could do such a thing, but the other part of me, the larger part, knew it wasn’t that far of a stretch and I hated it.

Daryl came back in tears. He couldn’t say the words, he couldn’t force them out, but the look he gave me told me everything I needed to know. Merle was gone. We’d lost another person and it tore at my heart like a wild animal, savagely ripping me apart from the inside. Merle had never been the best of people, but he’d been my brother, my blood, my kin. 

The Governor attacked again, but he hadn’t come as prepared as he was before. We’d caught them off guard in the tombs and had scared them off. We’d tried to go searching for them, but The Governor had killed most of his army, leaving their bodies on the side of the road. Woodbury had been abandoned too.

It was a few months before anything else happened. We’d been farming at the prison, growing our own food. We’d found piglets and were raising them. Life had gotten as normal as we thought it ever might. We were surviving, we were doing better, we had finally adjusted to life.

And then the flu hit.

Patrick, one of the people we'd rescued after Woodbury was abandoned, was the first one to die. He’d turned and ate several others in the prison, slowly starting a horde on the inside. We’d killed them all, but upon inspection, Patrick didn’t have any bites or scratches; something else had killed him.

Doc S. said that it was probably a disease, something that could be spread by pigs and birds and thrived in close quarters like the prison. Rick had killed the pigs and burned the pens. I couldn’t help but feel that our shred of normalcy was merely a façade; we’d never really have normal again the way we used to.

Chibs and the guys tried to reassure us that things would work out; we’d figure it out, but I had my doubts. Were we just destined to be killed off by some invisible disease? I’d never been religious, but I was starting to wonder if we’d pissed off a higher power; if this was our sentencing for our crimes.

Twelve more people died after Patrick. The flu had killed them off and we’d had to dig twelve more graves. I was fine with the digging; it was when we had to stop digging and bury the bodies that I struggled with. We’d already lost so many people, and here, we had to lose more.

And then Hershel and Michonne went missing, and the Governor returned, with a new army, standing outside our gates. He wanted to talk to Rick, and so they talked. But The Governor was having none of it, and to prove his point, he cut off Hershel’s head.

It was the closest thing to war I’d ever experienced; my friends dropping like flies from bullet wounds, the Governor’s tank bombing the prison. 

Daryl stood by my side the entire time, shooting as many of the Governor’s people as I was. Maggie and Beth had been loading the bus behind us somewhere, but I glanced back to see them heading back into the prison. Daryl told me he was going after them and disappeared from my side.

I wanted to watch Daryl's back and I gave him cover for a moment before there were hands on me. While I'd turned my back to give Daryl cover, three of the Governor's goons had snuck up behind me. One ripped my gun out of my hands and pinned my hands behind my back. I fought feverishly, but his grip was much stronger than him. Another pressed a gun to my head, the long barrel of the sniper rifle protecting the second man. The third stood in front of me, looking franticly between the two men and me. 

They drug me out of the main firing zone, where I'd been, almost in the middle of the courtyard. They moved me in between two of the buildings, out of way of stray gunfire. 

The guy who had my hands pinned behind my back lowered his face until his mouth was almost brushing my shoulder. A flash of red moved out of the corner of my eye and I could almost make out the bandana tied around his neck.

The guy with the rifle grinned, a maniac gleam in his eyes. "This one's gonna be fun."

"Just kill her already. Don't make her suffer." The man behind me mocked, and a flash of memories flooded me, reminding of me a time before the end of the world.

"Do I have to kill her?" The nervous looking guy in front of me asked.

"Yeah. Do it." The guy with the rifle said, poking me in the head with the muzzle.

The guy in front of me moved forward unsurely, his knife wavering in his hand. The tank roared in the distance, sending pieces of the building behind us flying away.

Without thinking, I broke free from the guy holding me and grabbed the knife out of the hands in front of me. I whirled around and knocked the gun out of the third guy's hands before stabbing him in the head. The guy that had been holding me had recovered and lunged forward, his front pressed to my back as he tried to restrain me. I fought wildly, knowing if he got a good grip on me, I was dead.

Somewhere in the distance, I heard Maggie's blood curdling scream to let her go and I hoped against hope she was alright.

It had distracted the other guy just enough that I threw my arm up and the blade sailed into his head, taking only a moment for him to do limp and nearly collapsed on top of me, a chunk of his skull breaking away with the force of his fall.

Looking up, I saw the kid who'd been ordered to kill me. He was so scared, he was shaking, his knees nearly knocking together. "Please. Please don't. You don't have to kill me. I didn't do anything wrong."

A wave of red anger washed over me. I could feel the blood splatter from the second guy drip down my face and neck. The knife felt like an extension of my fingers in my hand. "You did wrong when you picked the side with the murderers." I told him plainly, running at him. He looked terrified as I jumped at him, stabbing him through the head as I went. His skull shattered against the concrete with the force of the impact combined with the knife getting twisted. The knife was so bent, I couldn't get it out of his head.

Gunshots brought me back to where I was and I rushed to the end of the building towards the courtyard as Chibs ran around the corner. He opened his mouth to ask if I was okay, I could already see the words forming on his lips when he glanced me over then looked behind me.

“We gotta get outta this mess, lass.” Chibs said quickly.

I could barely hear him over the gunfire. “We gotta find Daryl.”

“We ain’t got the time, lass.” He told me sharply.

Another explosion struck the prison, shaking the ground and hurting my ears. I looked back behind us to see Kip charging at one of the Governor’s men. I wanted to yell out for him, to tell him to stop; there was no way he’d injury the man.

And as if on cue, the man turned and shot; with an explosion of red from his chest, Kip was knocked over. I wanted to scream, to cry, to kill the man. But he hadn’t seen us yet, he was faced the wrong direction.

I looked up to see Chibs’s concerned face. I nodded and he took my arm, pulling me away from the front of the building, around to a hole in the side fence and towards the forested area.

After a while of running, we took a minute to rest. My ears were still ringing and my shoulder ached. “Ya’ve been shot.”

I looked up at Chibs, then back at my shoulder, cringing against the pain. “Just a scratch.” I told him.

He tore off a strip of cloth from his shirt to wrap around my arm, despite my protests before he told us we had to get moving again. 

“But Daryl and Rick and the others.” I told him, not moving from my spot.

Chibs looked lost for a moment. His brothers, his family had been left behind too. Opie, Jax and Happy were still inside somewhere. As soon as I thought about Kip, I pushed the memory down, out of my mind before tears could sting my eyes or bile could rise in my throat. I didn’t have time to mourn him here.

“We’ll find ‘em again. But we’re all we got right now, and that’s gonna have to do us.” He told me firmly, moving closer to me to stress his point.

I nodded, knowing he was right, even though I didn’t want to think about it.

Pushing away from the tree, I looked back at the prison, smoking and burning behind us, a pile of bricks and boards now.

I wanted to know Daryl made it out alive. I wanted to know that the guys were safe. I wanted to think that Kip had just been wounded, not dead. But I’d seen the amount of blood he’d lost from the bullet and I knew he couldn’t still be alive.

I nodded again, trying to force down the sadness and the turmoil that threatened to choke me. Chibs took my hand and we moved into the forest, leaving the burning prison behind us.


End file.
